


The Diary (Monsta X Version)

by CmiMiu, MiU (CmiMiu)



Series: The Diary (Monsta X) [1]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Best Friends, Bittersweet, Childhood Friends, Diary/Journal, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Reincarnation, Religious Conflict, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2020-08-10 00:22:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmiMiu/pseuds/CmiMiu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmiMiu/pseuds/MiU
Summary: Jooheon stares at the boy in front of him. Dimpled cheeks and a dusky pink nose. He looks like an innocent lamb in his white sweater: sweater paws peeking from under the long sleeves. And he's struck with realization. As if a puzzle piece suddenly fitting in place. Jooheon watches the boy blow at the corn cup in his hands with fearful eyes.It's like he's watching a reflection of a certain boy. And that scares him.Or, Jooheon comes across a diary one day written by a young boy, in the local library. As he unravels the boy's feelings locked within those tattered pages, he realizes that some love stories transcend through time in hopes of being fulfilled.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> INFO: Diary Entries are in Bold. Phone or text conversations are in Italics. Time change or location change is after each ***.

**Entry Zero**

Kihyun looks up from his sketch pad when his teacher claps for attention. A boy, who couldn't be more than a year older than him, stands in front of the blackboard holding two lollipops in his right hand and a dosirak in his left.

“Everyone,” Mrs. Song, his home room teacher, calls to all the children in the small room.. When the children turn to her with broken-teeth smiles, some with snotty noses, she crouches down beside the boy and squeezes his shoulders smiling at everyone. “This is Minhyuk. Your new friend.” The boy shyly waves at them with the lollipops still in hand, before ducking his chin back into his chest. 

“Hi Minhyuk!” sings the chorus of all the kids as they are accustomed to greeting new students each year. The boy smiles, red cheeked, at the welcome and whispers a greeting back.

“Minhyukie,” She turns to the boy and smiles at him when he does the same. “Why don’t you go find a seat? Hmm? You can sit wherever you like.”

Of course, when Minhyuk’s face reflects the slightest hint of discomfort, Kihyun can’t help but pity the boy. He knows how difficult it is when you’re asked to choose a seat partner. He has been subjected to the horror of it all for the past three years after all. 

He knows well that Minhyuk is, right now, calculating the risk factors of choosing a seat. Mentally, Kihyun chalks off every seat he passes as he makes his way towards the student benches.

_He shouldn’t choose the front seat, _Kihyun tells himself. _Then Mrs. Song will make him read first every time we have a reading class. _The boy smiles, feeling oddly proud, when the other boy quickly passes by the front row.

He watches Minhyuk make his way to the second row and stop at a table full of girls. Giggling when they see him halt. _Urgh! No way! _Kihyun screams in his mind. Hands fisting into an involuntary fist. _Don’t sit beside the girls! Idiot! You’ll get cooties!!!_

Yet again, to Kihyun’s immense relief, Minhyuk moves on from the spot towards the third row. _Just keep walking. Just keep walking. Just keep walking. _Kihyun mutters under his breath, hands up in a prayer, eyes closed. It’s the bad kids table and Kihyun doesn’t want the good-looking new kid to become friends with those ‘hooligans’, as his father calls them.

His eyes are still closed when he feels a weight settle down on the bench he’s sitting on. Stealthily, Kihyun cracks his left eye open, and sure enough, Minhyuk is sitting beside him. A huge grin resting on his face.

“Hi!” The boy says, shoving a hand in front of Kihyun. A complete 360-degree change from his previous reserved nature in front of their teacher. “I’m Minhyuk!”

Kihyun shakily takes the hand offered, still not believing that Minhyuk chose to sit beside him. He might not be a nerd but he’s not exactly a popular kid either. But Kihyun doesn’t tell him that. Instead he takes his hand and resists the urge to point out to his new seatmate that he’s already been introduced by their teacher. He’s learnt people don’t like it when you point out the obvious to them.

“I’m Kihyun,” he mumbles instead, quickly pulling away his hands because they tingle in Minhyuk’s.

“Hi Kihyun! I’m Minhyuk!” 

With a withering look, Kihyun raises his eyes and tells the boy that, “you’ve already said that.”

To his credit, Minhyuk doesn’t find the statement even a slightly bit rude. He simply smiles and shoves a lollipop in Kihyun's hand. “Let’s be friends,” he says, voice cheery and bright.

Kihyun looks at the candy in his hand and then back at Minhyuk with eagle eyes. Sure, many people have wanted to be friends with him but none of them have made Kihyun feel so giddy at the prospect. 

He’s looking forward to and excited to be Minhyuk’s friend and he’s so, so, so happy that Minhyuk asked. He really wants to be friends with the boy and he doesn’t even know why. His stomach feels like that ‘Whooosh’ feeling it does when his brother drives down an inclined road at super top speed. His heart feels like it inside his mouth and he’s trying his hardest to swallow it, but it just won't go down. And his mouth tastes like the rock candy his mother always buys for him as they walk back home.

With a gruntled smile and an eager nod, Kihyun beams at his new friend, “sure!”

And thus starts, a love story.

* * *

**Entry One**

**Seoul, 2017**  
Jooheon eyes the battered cover of the notebook sitting in between the almost untouched copies of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy _and a copy of _Deadman Wonderland _. He’s exceedingly annoyed by the fact that someone was dumb enough to place the two books in the same shelf, but he ignores the incident for the time being. It’s a cold day outside so he’d planned on checking out something light and effortless to read for the day, but his attention is suddenly diverted by the particularly worn out book that is sitting between his previous two choices. 

As he pulls it out of the shelf, it’s oddly hefty, so unlike a normal paperback but not at all like a hardcover either. One touch tells him the outside jacket is pure leather and when he flips through the pages the sheets are a high-quality marble paper. Jooheon scans through a random page and it’s not printed in, it’s written in. He can tell it is ink from a fountain pen when he tries to scratch at some of the words and blue, dried ink, settles under his nails. 

And really, who wouldn’t want to read it now? The first page itself, making him curious under his toes:

**Diary of Yoo Kihyun**  
Gyeonggi-do, Suwon  
1966 – 1967

**All my tears are because of him. All my wounds spell out his name. He’s the path to my destruction. He’s the most beautiful tool I scar myself with. **

**In a time when even a simple love is taboo, I chose to fall in love with Him. **

He’s not one for romance novels but the book - diary - seems to have been written during the 1960’s and Jooheon doesn’t know why but he’s looking forward to the unrequited, forbidden love story of a young boy for another.

Making up his mind, he takes the book to the self-checkout counter and pulls out his library card. Having scanned it, he then turns the book in his hands to look for the barcode, but it’s not there. After spending a good five minutes, trying to look for the library’s barcode on the book, he huffs agitatedly and walks to the checkout counter.

“I want to check this book out, please.” He whispers at the kind old man sitting opposite to him. He shoots him a sweet smile before turning to the book in hand.

“That’s not a book from this library, Young man.” Jooheon watches, a frown etched into his forehead, as he looks up at him, pushing the book back to him, gently. “You're free to take it, if you want.”

He frowns, taking it back and sends a questioning look at him, then nods and walks away with the book still tucked under his arm. 

He misses the meaningful look the librarian shoots at him as he leaves.

***

He folds his feet under his legs as he settles into his armchair. A knitted blanket draped over his body, a coffee mug sitting in his hands. The diary, in his lap. 

Like a sudden storm, a million butterflies emerge in his heart, as if anticipation rising, as he starts reading.

**January 3rd, 1966**

**It was the first day of school after the winter break today. I swear I feel every single bone in my body breaking. Whose idea was is to have basketball practice at the end of the day!? The ice still hasn’t melted yet! For Heaven's sake! **

**I didn't even want to go! Didn't even have any classes! Urgh! Why did I even go!?**

**You know why I went, don’t you?**

**Ha! I feel so stupid talking to a stupid diary. Then again… Can’t really say these things to anyone else right?**

**Minhyuk really sucks at basketball, you know? He’d been sitting at the bleachers the entire time we were there. **

**I wish I sucked at that stupid game too.**

**We walked to the noodle shop in the marketplace after school. He offered to pay. Seemed to be in a good mood. He smiled a lot today too. **

**I think it’s because that dumb girl who gave him a confession letter in the afternoon. He took it alright, saying that it was ‘a brave attempt’ and the ‘girl’s feelings shouldn’t be harmed’ and what not. Said he wasn’t interested in dating, though. But I could tell he liked it. The pink envelope sprayed with expensive perfume. The pearl-like penmanship. The sweet words.**

**He tucked it inside his backpack with so much care, my heart ached in longing.**

**I wish I had nice penmanship. I wish I had enough money to buy expensive perfume only to spare it on paper.**

**I wish I could tell him I like him.**

**Her letter wasn’t even that touching. She just said she liked him and would like to date him. Emotionless, if you ask me.**

**Then again, can anyone ever feel the way I feel for him?**

**No one would know the right words to say to him.**

**He smiled like a fool the entire day today because a girl told him he’s handsome. That she likes him.**

**I wish I was allowed to love him like I do. **

**He wouldn’t stop smiling even when the world fell apart, if he heard my heart.**

**I’d tell him how his brown eyes look like they stole their colour from the bark of a willow tree. How his smile is so innocent - so pure - that it turns me into the most sinful person on earth. The way he waves at me when our eyes meet, smiling eyes, and hair a mess, makes me thank God for waking me up for another day. The way he moves towards me, slicing through the crowd of the morning assembly. The way he looks so utterly unabashed as he places his arm across my shoulders. **

**I wish I could tell him that everything he does breaks me as I try to put myself back.**

**I wish I was allowed to love him like I do.**

**Suwon, 1966**  
Kihyun stares at the calendar stuck to the back of his notebook, as he tries to block out the scene playing out in front of him. A girl, wearing a pinafore - sophomore, no doubt - is shyly looking up at the boy beside him. Batting her eyes every now and then. Giggling when Minhyuk, his friend, takes the envelope with an embarrassed gasp. Rubbing the nape of his neck in embarrassment.

“Umm…” His friend begins, at a complete loss for words as his cheeks turn a bright scarlet. He looks at Kihyun for some kind of telepathic help, but the boy simply coughs and walks away. Muttering an excuse of ‘leaving the two together’.

He’s speed-walking out of the library building when Minhyuk stops him. Grabbing the boy by his shoulders the elder of the two, pulls him into his chest and turns him around, muttering over his ears. “You fool. We’re going out the back wing.”

A whispered “right” is all Kihyun manages as he’s being dragged out of the quad and towards the back of the school building. A sullen silence falls between that Kihyun finds daunting. “We can hang out tomorrow, Min.” He tries to sound like his usual elated self. Of course, Minhyuk doesn’t miss the brooding tone, but chooses not to point it out for the moment. “You shouldn’t leave her like that.”

Minhyuk, still hold him in a loose back hug, hums thoughtfully at Kihyun’s words. “What about you then?” He asks after a while, wherein Kihyun almost melts due to the hot air the boy is blowing in his ears. 

Kihyun shrugs good-naturedly at that and turns around as they reach the bus stop. He waves his hand in front of him and declares, “I’m good. I can just go hang out with Hyungwon or something. Besides, I have a vocal exam next week so gotta work on that song I’ve been assigned too.”

The elder boy eyes him then. A long while. And Kihyun can’t help but trace every line in his face. Every crevice that makes him fall in love with the boy. “You don’t have to hang with Hyungwon or work on the exam alone,” Minhyuk mutters as the bus comes into view. He walks over to Kihyun and ruffles his hair before pulling him into a side embrace. His fingers still carding through the locks at the back of the boy’s head. Massaging just under the nape of his neck, “I’m not leaving you.”

They are simple words. Nothing fancy, nothing heartfelt. But Kihyun can feel himself falling more in love with the boy when he says that.

**Seoul, 2017  
**His violent ringtone breaks his reverie and Jooheon jerks away from the book in his hand to reach out for the device. Without so much as looking at the caller ID he answers the call and is greeted by the voice of his best friend.

_“Where are you?” _Changkyun’s voice filters through the device and a smile makes its way on Jooheon’s lips.

He carefully places the diary on his coffee table and stands up, stretching as he replies, “I’m home. Chilling. You?”

_“I’m hungry. Let’s go for ramyun at the old store.” _

Jooheon chuckles at the excitement in the boy’s voice, and nods his head, reaching for his jacket as he makes his way out his apartment. Grabbing his keys and wallet as he hangs up with, “meet you at the bus stop then.”

***

Jooheon watches Changkyun slurps down another bowl of the steamy delicacy. He can’t help but roll his eyes at the boy’s unquenching hunger. Looking away from the boy, he then starts looking at the back wall of the little shop, like he always does.

It’s a quaint little eatery, no larger than a studio flat. With only four tables and no washrooms, the place holds an antique feel to it. The wallpaper is yellowing and most of the utensils they serve with are so old they are turning green at the handles. He still remembers the day Changkyun had brought him to the place, boasting the excellent menu selection and cheap price. Of course, the fact that the shop was more than fifty years old added to its charm.

There’s a wall in the back of the cosy, little enterprise that has always amused Jooheon. ‘It shows history’, he always tells Changkyun. Names, caricatures, love confession, death threats; a myriad of emotions have been graffitied on the pristine white cement wall. And every time he goes there, he makes it a point to try to read all the notes on it.

Today is no different. Jooheon traces his fingers over unknown names and unheard-of words. Brand names he’s never known, people he’s never met. And yet it all seems too familiar. He doesn’t know why, it just does. As he’s sitting mesmerized by the sketches drawn on the far corner of the wall, Changkyun’s voice seeps into his consciousness.

“We should take a photo like that someday and stick it to the wall.” He’s pointing in the far-right corner of the wall, underneath some obscured band names. Jooheon squints for a better look and sees a polaroid picture of two boys. Holding the extra-large ramen bowls over their heads, grinning like fools. There is curry all over their white shirts and face and they look utterly drunk. “It’ll be a good memory.” Changkyun says and Jooheon tilts his head to read the penmanship on the bottom of the picture.

He’s about to get up and walk over to the picture when Changkyun nudges Jooheon. “Are you planning on staying here all night?” the boy asks with raised eyes.

Jooheon shakes his head and gets to his feet, ready to leave the little shop when his eyes catch sight of a little polaroid camera sitting at the checkout counter near the exit. He halts, something stirring in his stomach and his hand shoots out to hold Changkyun back from exiting. At the boy’s raised eyes, Jooheon jerks his head towards the device. 

Smiling at boy whose hand is held in his own, Jooheon reaches out to the camera and smirks, “let’s make a memory.”

Changkyun smiles, eyes shining, moves to crouch beside the shorter man. They click the picture, grinning faces and all, and Jooheon watches the boy politely ask the owner of the shop for a marker pen. Rolling his eyes when he sees him ink the bottom of the polaroid with the date and their names.

_ **Lee Jooheon Im Changkyun   
Seoul 2017** _

He spies Changkyun racing to the back with a wall tack and pinning the photograph to the memories wall. And as they exit the restaurant Jooheon feels his stomach itching to know what was written on the polaroid of the two boys’ he’d previously seen.

* * *

**Entry Fourteen**

**Seoul, 2017**  
They have no idea what had pushed them to do this, but a week after that awful rain Jooheon and Changkyun find themselves at the playground of their old school. Not to mention it's the middle of the night and the two are the only humans to grace the otherwise abandoned play area.

Like the little kids they are, the boys are racing up and down slides and swings that they've outgrown by several years. Changkyun, clearly more so than Jooheon. The hooting owls alert them of midnight, but the two boys never pay heed to it, as they continue screaming their heads off in the merry-go-round.

It's several hours after fooling around that they settle down. More like fall down in the soft sand pit that had been their most favourite pass time during kindergarten. A calm falls over them like a blanket of warmth during winter.

“Care to tell me what's got you feeling down?” Jooheon whispers after several minutes staring at the night sky with a sense of longing. The stars visible for once. He can feel Changkyun move his head to look at him - in questioning no doubt - and he smiles as he continues, never looking away from the galaxies panned out for them in space. “You called me at 11 on a school night and asked if we could come here…” He turns his head to stare into the already glistening eyes of the boy as he gently speaks, “Did something happen?”

There's an ocean of emotions shining behind brown eyes that strain to keep their tears in. Jooheon wishes he could just grab the boy in his embrace and never let him cry again, but he knows that's not what Changkyun needs right now. Instead he turns back to the sky, patting Changkyun’s hand that is sitting between them.

“Sometimes I wish I couldn't feel.” Comes Changkyun’s whisper as he turns his hand under Jooheon’s, holding it. “Feelings are a bitch.”

Jooheon doesn't respond back. Just continues to rub his thumb over his friend's cold knuckles as they continue to gaze into the night's beauty. 

***

Jooheon waves Changkyun goodbye from the threshold of his apartment door before shutting the door close. He never received an answer to his inquiry about Changkyun’s reason for sadness, but it’s not like he’s not going to see the boy tomorrow during their physics lab, so his mind is rest assured. Either ways, Changkyun looked like he’d gotten over whatever ordeal he was dealing with so Jooheon considers it a job well done.

He glances at the clock on the mantle and frowns when the time reads 2:18 in the morning. Biting his lips, he huffs a sigh and refutes the idea of his bedroom for the night. Instead, walking into the kitchen, pulls out a large mug, fills it with milk up till the rim and scoops out three large spoonsful of his favourite chocolate mix. Warming it up in the microwave, he’s all set.

Walking over to his favourite spot by the window, Jooheon settles under the plush throw and cuddles next to his couch pillow. He pulls at the diary sitting on his work desk and opens to the page he’d last bookmarked.

**January 7, 1966**

**It shouldn’t excite me, but it does.**

**I shouldn’t like him like that, but I do.**

**I should’ve pushed him away, but I couldn’t help but pull him closer.**

**Minhyuk should hate me; he would if he knew. But he doesn’t.**

**I wish he never finds out.**

**Suwon, 1966**  
It’s past midnight and Kihyun is only just settling into his covers when a pebble knocks onto the glass door of his balcony. He doesn’t make much of it and continues to fail at making his pillow fluffier by literally punching it in every possible crevice. Soon however, one stone turns to two which then turn to fifteen. Kihyun stops in the middle of his pillow reconstruction and watches his gallery with hawk eyes. And sure enough, another round of pebbles come flying at the glass panel.

It’s fairly comedic how the boy jumps to his feet at the sound of rock hitting against glass and lets out a shrill shriek - that he will most definitely deny. Like a scene out of a cliché romcom, Kihyun brandishes his Calculus textbook and edges closer to the balcony door, to peek at whatever, or whoever, is throwing those stones at his window.

He’s trembling only slightly as he leans over the low railing and looks down at the person standing down in the lawn. His eyes turn double their size when he catches a glimpse of the person in a hoodie waves at him. It’s too dark to really see his face, but Kihyun thinks he knows the person, merely because the said person yells at him with a demonic, sonorous voice. “Kihyun!” 

The hint of cheekiness in his voice, is enough of an indication of who it is and Kihyun lets his lips curl in an ugly frown as he whisper-yells at his friend. “What the fuck are you doing her, asshole!?” He watches Minhyuk take in a deep breath before he answers and stops the boy before he has the chance to, “don’t you fucking dare yell again!”

Minhyuk rubs the back of his neck as he looks up at Kihyun, whisper-yelling (which in Kihyun’s opinion is the same as him talking out loud), “let me in. I wanna sleep with you.”

Okay, so Minhyuk is bad at articulating words and Kihyun knows that. But still, the knowledge of the boy’s poor language skill does little to dampen the rain of emotions flooding Kihyun’s being. He knows Minhyuk doesn’t mean it that way. That it’s highly out of context, but Kihyun can’t control the way his ears turn red and the heat that pools into his cheeks.

“Why do you wanna sleep here though?” He yells back (quietly of course) and he looks around himself trying to figure out a way of letting the boy in without his parents know. “Can you come in through the front door, or is your coming here supposed to be a secret?”

“Of course, it’s supposed to be a secret, you idiot!” Minhyuk huffs back. “And I’ll tell you why once you help me in.”

Kihyun groans as he pulls at his hair, growling at the slightly older boy staring up at him. “How in the world can I get you in, if not through the front door!?”

It seems that Minhyuk already thought of that, however, because he yells back at Kihyun to, “make a rope out of your bed sheets and throw it down here!” 

Kihyun races back inside and does as he's told, and sooner than he's aware, Minhyuk is climbing up the rope ladder he'd learnt to make during his boy scout days. The younger boy grits his teeth to keep the tight hold on the other end. 

Soon, like Shakespeare’s Romeo, Minhyuk is mounting over the ledge and stepping into his balcony. And just like in the play, Kihyun's heart screams a warning. 

A tragedy in its wake.

But the moment his friend is standing in front of him, looking at him with eyes that bulge at the bottom. Narrowed from the forced smile they are shooting at him, Kihyun can’t help himself, from pulling him into his arms.

Minhyuk, as if he needed the hug, latches himself onto Kihyun with an unsettled urgency. Pressing his face unto the crook of the boy's neck. Letting a tear spill from his eyes. Onto Kihyun's shoulder. The younger closes his eyes as he traces the path of the tear drop.

Centuries, condensed into a single moment, pass by before Kihyun pulls back. Staring at his friend from under his eyelashes, he whispers almost inaudibly, “do you wanna talk about it?”

Minhyuk smiles, another rueful curve on his lips, and nods his head. Hands still wrapped just above Kihyun's waist.

The younger boy smiles back in encouragement, because he doesn't know what else he should do right now and pulls the boy into his bedroom. 

**Seoul, 2017**  
Jooheon stares annoyed at his now empty cup. Lips curled into a frown. _What's the use of buying a huge ass cup when the chocolate milk still won't last longer than an hour!? _

He groans pushing himself to stand and stares at the diary in hand with a forlorn look in his eyes. Then looks out the window through which morning light is pleasantly seeping in. Huffing another sigh, Jooheon replaces the book on his work desk and pats it as he quietly whispers to himself.

“I guess I'll read the rest tonight then.”

***

As soon as he walks into the cafe, Jooheon is bombarded with the smell of cinnamon and chocolate. It’s an awfully familiar scent that reminds him of a boy with dimples. He smiles, making his way towards the counter and smirks at the boy standing at the till. “Kkukungie!”

Changkyun looks up from the order cup he's working on and beams at the boy. “Joohoney!” Jooheon doesn't know how the boy can be so excited every time they meet, but he knows he finds the trait loveable. “Same old, same old?” He asks cheekily and Jooheon snickers as he nods.

Turning around to give the shop a once over, he realizes that the shop is empty. So, when he turns back around, Jooheon leans over the counter and gestures at Changkyun to grab his attention. “How you doing today?”

Changkyun raises his eyes in question as he walks over to the coffee machine in the back and starts making Jooheon’s order. “What do you mean? What happened to me?”

Jooheon rolls his eyes as he winces back, “you weren't in the best of moods yesterday. Did you get back home well last night?”

The other boy doesn't respond back as he makes the drink. Placing it on a tissue paper when he gets back, Changkyun bites his lips as he nods with a small smile. “It wasn't much. And yes. I, obviously, did get back home safe, Joohoney.”

_He's lying._ Jooheon is so sure about it, he could swear his entire fortune over it. 

Letting a frown filter onto his forehead, Jooheon huffs a sigh and groans out to the boy. “What is it? I wasn't going to keep pestering you about it. But I'm worried about you. You're never distressed about anything for so long. It's been four days now!”

Changkyun sighs as he pushes a few buttons on the till machine and starts counting bills. It's so obvious he's trying to avoid eye contact.

The elder boy watches in apparent dissatisfaction and Changkyun continues to count bills here's probably counted several times before already. Watching the way the boy tries to keep his emotions in. How here's bites his lips every other second. How his Adam's apple quivers. Jooheon can feel anger bubbling in his gut but he doesn't know why.

“It's nothing, Joohoney. You don't need to worry about it.” In an afterthought he adds, without ever looking up from the bills in hand, “it's a Friday. What are you doing here even?”

Just as he's about to give a reply, a hand lands on his shoulders and Jooheon shuts up in favour of looking at the person behind him. 

“Hey there, Jooheon!” Hana pleasantly grins, latching onto his arm in a death grip. She then turns her attention towards Changkyun and waves at greeting in his direction too. “Changkyunie.”

As if a chameleon changing its colours, Changkyun’s face loses all the colours in it and he goes pale white. Then slowly, like blood seeping into a white pristine cloth, his ears start turning red, lips curling unpleasantly into a fake smile. Hands fisting, almost crumbling the notes in his hand. “Hey Hana.” His voice clipped.

Hana beams at the boy then turns to Jooheon and grabbing his chin turns his face to look at her. She pouts, her lips jutting out in the most delectable manner and bats her eyes at Jooheon, “Come one, babe. We have a movie catch.”

And as she's pulling him away and out the door of the little cafe, Jooheon keeps turning back to look at the boy he'd been talking to. 

The way his lips tremble makes Jooheon think he's going to cry again.

_Does he like her? _He asks himself as he exits the through the door. Watching Changkyun from the windows of the shop as they walk away. 

For some reason, that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Something tells him the reason is not possessiveness for his girlfriend but something else entirely.

**Suwon, 1966**  
The two are lying in the bed, pressed against each other’s warm bodies due to the lack of space on the mattress. Kihyun could count Minhyuk's individual eyelashes tangled into each other if every cell of his body wasn't trying it’s hardest to stay sane. Minhyuk’s lips, swollen and red, letting out hot breaths, are mere inches away from his own and he feels faint when the warm breath grazes his own lips.

“What happened?” Kihyun whispers, eyes fully awake now. He knows already but he's aware that Minhyuk needs to speak out about it. 

His friend closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. And when he opens them, Kihyun gives him an encouraging smile. One that is all too familiar to him. 

“I skipped Sunday mass, so my father kicked me out of the house for the night.” Minhyuk mutters against their share pillow. There’s fear lingering in his words. A hesitance Kihyun has seen too many times to not catch. He then breaks from the gaze that Kihyun tries his hardest to stay put. As if waiting for Kihyun to reply, Minhyuk stays mute. Concentrating on the rhythm of his breaths.

“Did…” Kihyun begins but stops himself. He’s afraid to hear the reply, but restlessness runs through his veins at the lack of knowledge. “Did he hit you, again?”

Minhyuk looks up into his eyes then. Eyes clear with water lining the rim. He shakes his head lazily, moving closer to Kihyun. Placing his arm across his friend’s waist in an attempt to share body heat. “Not this time, he didn’t.”

Kihyun tries to process the information. He wants to give a reply, but his brain seems to have stopped functioning for the slightest of seconds. All he knows is that Minhyuk’s arm falls perfectly, almost like a puzzle piece, over his waist. The weight gentle, non-exerting. Heavy, like the weight of the world.

“You should sleep.” He says after a while of racking his mind for anything to say. As he’s turning to switch off the bedside lamp, though, Minhyuk stops him. Pulling at his arm before he can so much as even move. 

“You think he’s right, don’t you?” the elder boy asks him. A sort of bitterness lingering in his sleep-deprived voice. “You resent me for my choices too, don’t you? For my beliefs.”

Kihyun looks into those brown eyes that look darker in the night than they are. An ocean of hurt reflected in them. He smiles, turning to switch off the lamp. As he turns back, the moonlight filtering sinfully over the side of Minhyuk’s face, he braves his heart to move a little closer. “I’m not one to judge.” He whispers. Letting the words hang in the air between them before continuing. “Your faith, or lack of it, doesn’t change the person you are, Min. Whether you’re a Christian or an Atheist.”

“Says the son of the only clergyman in town.” Minhyuk scoffs turning on his back to stare up at the ceiling. “Your father’s the first person to give me the death glare in a crowded room.”

“I’m not my father, Min,” Kihyun whispers. Admonishingly. As if reminding him. “I don’t care if you don’t believe in God.”

The other boy’s lips tremble and he huffs and groans as he turns to his friend. “I try to believe, Ki.” He insists. Emotions leaking through the pores of his being. “I try my best but I just can’t!” 

“Why can’t you?” Comes the whispered query.

Minhyuk looks away and scoffs tiredly. “How can I believe in something I’ve never seen, Ki?”

Kihyun shrugs his shoulders and turns on his back to stare up at the ceiling just like his best friend is. “You can’t see air either, Minhyuk.”

“I can feel it though” Minhyuk replies back immediately. As if he was waiting for the Kihyun to say just that. In an afterthought he adds, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to… insult your faith. I’m sorry.”

Kihyun lets the words crash around his mind for a while before he starts speaking again. Leaning his head on Minhyuk’s shoulder, which is a lot more comfortable than his own pillow. “I think I’d have been like you too.” He says. “If I didn’t feel God’s presence around me.”

“You feel him around you?” Minhyuk mumbles a despaired inquiry. Sleep lurking in the whites of his eyes.

“All the time.”

It is then when Minhyuk turns around and places his arm across Kihyun’s stomach. Snuggling his face into the dip of his neck and shoulder. Breathing hot, erotic breaths against his collarbone. “Well, I can’t feel him. So, he doesn’t exist for me.”

Kihyun doesn’t speak after that. Because Minhyuk has already slipped into dreamland. He simply watches the boy fall into a dream. When he’s sure Minhyuk’s deep in his sleep. He gets up and walks over to his study table, pulling out a leather-bound diary.

**Seoul, 2017**  
Jooheon stares at Hana, his girlfriend of three months, as she is pulling on her clothes. “What’s gotten into you, Jooheon?” She asks as she’s stepping into her skirt. “You seem out of it lately.”

He doesn’t give an answer as he continues watching her get dressed. Once she’s all dressed, he gets to his feet and mutters to her, taking his keys from the vanity, “Let me drop you to your class.”

Before he can step out of the room, however, Hana pulls him back. Holding onto his wrist, she raises her eyebrows at him and softens her features as she steps closer. “What happened? Did I do something wrong? Why have you been acting so… distant, lately?”

Jooheon gulps as he stares into her hazel eyes. It’s the same eyes he’d fallen for, but they’ve lost the charm. Or maybe it’s Jooheon who’s lost all interest in them now. It’s been a week since he’s met Changkyun and a week had passed since Hana’s red, luscious lips have lost her beauty.

“I think…” He begins, not an ounce of remorse in his mind. “I think we should break up.” Her eyes bulge out at the words. Mouth hanging open. Jooheon watches her eyes water but it fails to make him feel anything other than guilt for her. “I’m sorry.”

Without even letting her speak, he pulls his arm out of her hand. The grasp tight, but not tight enough. He walks out of her apartment without a glance back.

***

Jooheon wanders into his apartment, still staring into his cell phone. The text message he’d left to Changkyun an hour ago is still left unanswered. 

**_To Changkyunie: _**  
I need a drink. Where are you?   
  
I haven’t seen you for a week.   
Are you busy with something? 

_I stopped by the cafe too. You weren’t there. _

  
Text me back when you’re free.   
  
I broke up with Hana.

As he drags his feet into the living room of his empty apartment, the diary catches his eyes. He smiles ruefully at the book and settles into his arm chair with the futon. The book tucked under his arm.

**I learned something new today…**

**My love for him is like believing in a God you can’t see. I can’t show it to him, therefore, for him, it doesn’t exist.**

**And if it doesn’t exist, then the possibility of him returning those feelings doesn’t either. **

He’s in the middle of opening the next entry when his cell phone dings. Jooheon looks away from the messy words inked into the marble pages and smiles at the text message, getting up to leave the apartment at the speed of light.

** _From Changkyunie:_ **

_I’m in Hongdae. Convention Center. _  
  
Bring money. I don’t have cash.

* * *

**Entry Thirty-One**

**Suwon, 1966**  
It’s a high school fieldtrip but for once, Kihyun is looking forward to it. Mainly because this means that he’ll be able to get away from school for a while. And a little bit because Lee Minhyuk is his partner and roommate during their one week stay in the forest cottages.

“The GwangbangKi National park has been a heritage site for our country since 1816 and it's the largest arboretum in the country, sharing borders with three states” their teacher explains to them as they yawn their way towards their boarding. 

Kihyun continues to drag his feet on the gravel when Minhyuk lets his entire body weight crash into his back. “She's so fucking boring.”

“Ugh! You're telling me?” Kihyun scowls at the back of the lady. “Try being her brother in law and living in the same house!” as if to prove a point he dramatically shudders like he just tasted a very sour lime.

Minhyuk winces almost theatrically and pats his back as he exclaims, “your sacrifice will be honoured my friend!”

The two stare at each other for a paused second then burst out laughing like the maniacs they are. Grinning like they're high.

“Lee Minhyuk! Yoo Kihyun!” their biology teacher, Mrs. Lee, stares pointedly at them, calling them out with a loud, shrill voice. “Care to share your jokes with the class, you two?” Her smile, fake as faux leather, rests lightly on her lips. The two boys don't reply, instead biting their lips to keep their laughter in. Failing miserably at the task. The woman waits a beat then turns to the entire class and continues her instructions. 

“How do you not murder her in her sleep?” Minhyuk whispers down Kihyun's ear, acting all conspicuous. “How does your brother bear living with her!?”

At the horror in Minhyuk's voice, Kihyun chuckles and whispers back, keeping his eyes at his sister in law, “well, according to my brother, being in love with her, helps him cope with the trauma of living with her.”

The other rolls his eyes at that and continues to murmur, placing his arm over Kihyun's shoulder and letting his lips brush against his ears to keep his voice down. “I pity that man, Kihyun.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes and is about to speak when Mrs. Lee interrupts them by clapping her hands in the air to grab their attention. “Now!” she turns to the entire class again, “I want everyone to grab a basket and start hunting the wild roots we've discussed in class last week. I hope everyone remembered to bring their textbooks for this! And remember to be back by sundown. I have the keys to your dorm rooms with me!”

Once she's done the students start dispersing and, just as he always does, Minhyuk pulls Kihyun away by dragging him by his shoulders.

***

Kihyun stares around the scenery as he sits under a persimmon tree. The sky is still bright with flecks of pink and blue in the horizon and the sweet smell of fruits fills his nostrils. But that's not what grabs his attention.

It's Minhyuk. It always is.

Minhyuk, lying on the ground beside him. With his eyes closed and lopsided smile gracing his lips. The sunlight falling lazily over his face in patches leaving the shadows from the tree leaves intact. The mole under his eyes. His full lips. The way his chest heaves even when he's resting. His head resting on Kihyun's lap.

Braving his heart, Kihyun moves a trembling hand towards the boy's hair. Gulping before letting his fingers card through those soft locks. Minhyuk smiles when he feels Kihyun's fingers playing with his hair. And snuggles his face closer to the boy's belly. Making a million butterflies erupt in his stomach at the feeling of his nose so very close to his belly button.

They stay like that for the rest of the afternoon. Just lying next to each other. Eating the fruits from around them, guffawing over silly jokes. Sharing words of wisdom. Sleeping under the shade of the persimmon trees. 

**Seoul, 2017**  
Changkyun is sitting on the fountain border when Jooheon arrives. The elder chooses to not declare his arrival in lieu of watching the younger one blow soap bubbles in the air as he waits for arrival. A dusky pink hue colouring his cheeks due to the cold.

“Changkyunie!” He yells out and watches the boy turn to him that same overzealous laughter he'd come to know all these years. Something drops in his stomach at the smile. So genuine, so pure. Like water flowing down a mountain.

The boy runs to him. Pushing past a crowd. Eyes twinkling like the brightest stars in Heaven. 

“You're here!” Changkyun gasps out once he's in front of him. Jooheon watches him heave like crazy with a maniacal smile on his own lips. He doesn't know why, but his heart is fluttering at the sight of his best friend.

Jooheon smirks at the boy and shoves his hands in his pocket, smile never leaving his lips as he says, “of course I am. I keep my promises, idiot!”

He then walks on ahead, gesturing Changkyun to follow. And the younger boy smiles softly as he follows him. Muttering to himself as he races to grab Jooheon in a side hug, “you sure do.”

**Suwon, 1966**  
The night sky turns golden by the time the two friends stumble into their dorm room. It's a very tiny room with two exceptionally narrow single beds and a miniscule bathroom attached. Overlooking the stream that cuts through the mountain range, the view is probably the most exquisite, however.

Minhyuk jumps into his bed, and Kihyun into his own. A cool breeze ruffles their hair as their two turns their eyes to their open window. Without uttering a word, Kihyun gets to his feet and drags their comforter behind himself as he shuffles out, into their tiny gallery.

“Are you planning on trying to commit suicide with a blanket wrapped around your body?” Minhyuk muses from inside the room, guffawing at his own joke.

“It's a comforter, idiot.” Kihyun dryly responds back. Mirth in his voice. He then sighs and looks back and the setting sun, smiling as he explains. “Just imagine how the sunset would look from here.”

At that Minhyuk stops laughing and contemplation colours his features. He doesn't speak after that and drags his own comforter behind him to squeeze into the spot next to Kihyun. Their knees pulled to their chest but their feet touching still.

Minhyuk bends a little in his awkward position to grab Kihyun’s feet, rubbing them as he continues to stare at the horizon. “Why are your feet always so cold?”

Kihyun looks at him, gazing at his side profile that is more defined in the light of the setting sun. He smiles and rests his cheek against his knees, sighing delightedly at the warm hands that work their heat into his cold feet. “I have bad circulation, you birdbreath.” He mumbles. Suddenly, the exhaustion of the day hits him like a bullet train. “Your hands are always so warm though.”

Minhyuk scoffs and rolls his eyes, turning to smirk at the boy. Their eyes staring holes into each other’s. “That’s so I can hold your cold hands, chicken brain.”

And once again, the words hold no meaning in reality but to Kihyun they mean the world. He smiles, albeit a little bitterly at the difference in their context and looks away as the sun begins to set.

As the sky turns a bright pink with shades of grape purple and crayon blue filling the spots where light doesn’t reach, Minhyuk pulls Kihyun’s hands into his own. No words shared. No explanation. He continues to convey heat into Kihyun’s palms. Holding them close to his lips and blowing breaths over nails that have turned blue due to the cold.

**Seoul, 1966**  
They are standing at a food stall and Changkyun is all smiles so naturally, Jooheon is too. The man at the stall is boiling the corn kernels and it’s a sight to behold. Not because it’s winter and the corn kernels look delectable, but because Changkyun is literally bouncing up and down where he stands at the anticipation of them. 

“Here you go, boy!” The man laughs as he pushes a huge cup of boiled corn kernels flavoured with butter, lime, salt and pepper. He then makes another cup and gives it to Jooheon, telling the two to enjoy themselves.

Changkyun takes a bite of the warm snack and hums with his dimples on display, closing his eyes as their walking towards the park. Jooheon is biting into his own spoonful when a kid comes racing towards them riding a skateboard. In a sudden burst of reflex, Jooheon grabs Changkyun by the hand and pulls him away before the boy crashes into him.

Changkyun, whose eyes were closed, pops his eyes open and stares at Jooheon with the plastic spoon still stuck in his mouth. Mouthing “what’s the matter?” from around the spoon.

Jooheon stares at the boy in front of him. Dimpled cheeks and a dusky pink nose. He looks like an innocent lamb in his white sweater: sweater paws peeking from under the long sleeves. And he's struck with realization. As if a puzzle piece suddenly fitting in place. Jooheon watches the boy blow at the corn cup in his hands with fearful eyes. 

It's like he's watching a reflection of a certain boy. And that scares him.

He looks down between them, staring emotionlessly at their intertwined hands before looking back up into Changkyun’s confused eyes. “Your hands are always so cold.”

Another dimple mars the perfect visage and Changkyun takes another biteful mumbling, “I have bad circulation, Joohoney.” As if it’s something that Jooheon should know already. But he doesn’t think they’ve ever even held hands let alone discuss Changkyun’s cold hand and feet syndrome. “But your hands are always so warm.” He squeezes the hands clutching onto his own.

Jooheon up once again stares at their hands. Looking completely unmatched. They don’t fit together like he thought they would, but they feel comfortable. Warm. Inviting. Changkyun holds his hand back tight. Gentle, but tight.

The elder then looks up at the younger boy and tightens his grip as he drags him towards the benches. “That’s so I can hold yours, idiot.”

***

Jooheon eyes the wall clock as he enters his apartment. The time reads two in the morning but instead of racing towards his bedroom, Jooheon walks up to his armchair with the coffee table next to it. He stumbles down into the cushions and eyes the leather-bound diary for a few seconds before inhaling a deep breath and pulling it into his lap.

He turns the page to his last bookmark. Tracing the inked words with glossed eyes.

**March 14th, 1966**

**Sometimes I think Minhyuk knows how I feel. It’s a possibility, after all.**

**There are times when he just stares at me after I say something. Watching me. No judgment in his eyes, just curiosity.**

**And then there are times I feel like he knows and is playing with me. Like a prank or mocking me.**

**Times when he rejects cakes from girls, instead choosing to keep me company. Times when he grabs me by the shoulder and whispers down my ear. Letting his breath burn my soul as he speaks. Times when he looks at me for assurance, when he’s scared. **

**When he snuggles his face into my neck.**

**When he rubs my feet between his warm hands to keep them warm.**

**When he just stares at me and holds my hands because my nails have turned blue from the cold.**

**Sometimes I think Minhyuk knows and I am scared. **

Jooheon closes the book as he stares off into the night sky. Changkyun’s smiling face clouding his already clouded mind. He closes his eyes, and with a smile resting on his lips, drifts to sleep.

**Suwon, 1966**  
Kihyun pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his comforter around his body as he rests his back to the bedpost. His feet resting on the windowsill as he watches the night flourish. Minhyuk is softly snoring on his bed, but he doesn’t turn to look at the boy.

His emotions might get the better of and he can’t trust himself. Not so deep into the night, when every cell in his body is exhausted and crying for rest.

But can’t rest. He just can’t seem to do so. Not with Minhyuk sleeping in the same room as him, oblivious to his feelings for the elder.

He heaves as sigh, then another. A bird flies over to the window he’s staring out of, pecking at the glass before flying away. In the spur of the moment, he gets up. Sparing a glance at the sleeping figure of his friend, he wraps another layer of bedsheets around himself and walks to the door. Without a glance back, he walks out the door and into the night.

The cold burns his cheeks but he shivers a little and starts walking. Walking down the mountain range, with the creek as his guide, Kihyun steps carefully over the rocks as he makes his way to the clearing they had seen in the morning while climbing up.

It’s a wide-open field-like clearing. There are a few trees around the huge boulder formation in the middle but other than that, the place is fairly devoid of the tall banyan trees the forest is so famous for. He makes his way towards the boulder and slides down by its side, using it as a back rest, staring out at the river that flows below.

From here he can hear the silence of the night. The owls hooting and the pitter patter of critters running across the forest floor. A melody breaches his mind and he starts singing quietly, swaying to the rhythm of the wind. His voice echoing like a siren's cry in the oceans.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been there, but he doesn’t want to go back. As another song escapes his lips, a voice breaks his harmony.

“What are you doing out here?” Minhyuk echoes as he makes his way towards the boy.

Kihyun looks back, startled at the company, and heaves a sigh when Minhyuk tuts at him like an annoyed mother. “Ya!” He exclaims, discreetly patting his heart, and hits the boy in his shoulder as he settles down next to him. “Weren't you sleeping just now?”

Minhyuk winces as he rubs his shoulders and shrugs as he sits cross legged in front of Kihyun, “I woke up.” He then rests his back against the same boulder Kihyun is and looks up at the twinkling stares as he speaks. “What are you doing here though, Ki?”

The younger boy looks back up at the stars as lets his head lightly knock onto Minhyuk as he hums, “couldn’t sleep.”

“Something on your mind?” Minhyuk's voice echoes quietly as he reaches between them to hold onto the younger's cold hands. “Your hands are cold again.”

Kihyun gulps, eyes watering, as he wistfully forces a smile on his lips. “Yeah. Something is definitely on my mind.”

Minhyuk turns away from the stars to look at Kihyun. “What is it?” The boy can feel the gaze directed towards him but doesn’t look back into the eyes that are watching him. He’s scared his emotions might leak away in the darkness of the night.

“Something that I shouldn't be thinking about.” Kihyun replies back. 

A heavy, excruciatingly painful, moment crashes between them, before Kihyun turns to look back at Minhyuk.

The two stare at each other. Like in mangas. Or romance movies. Their breaths mingling into each other’s in front of their mouths in puffs of cloudy winter breaths. Kihyun's eyes that are glistening with unshed tears, looking brighter than any star Minhyuk's ever seen. 

And then, just like that, the moment breaks with a roar. Somewhere in the forest, a wild boar groans and the two boys stutter before clambering to get to their feet. But, the tangled mess of blankets, comforters and bedsheets make them stumble.

Like something straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, Kihyun's legs get caught between Minhyuk’s and he falls, rather ungracefully, over Minhyuk's body. The elder boy knocks his head against the rock behind him and winces as he closes his eyes with the pain.

Kihyun, still trying to get out of the jumbled sheets, fidgets like an earthworm in the sheets when he loses footing and slams right into Minhyuk.

Their mouths crashing against each other in the clumsiest kiss the world has ever seen.

As if burnt by Hell fire, Kihyun pushes himself off the elder boy and falls back, knocking his head, rather loudly, on one of the sharp rocks lining the clearing.

Minhyuk hears the crashes and pushes away from the boulder, wincing himself, and races beside Kihyun, pulling the boy into a sitting position. “Are you an actual idiot!?” He yells at the boy when he touches his head and feels warm, sticky blood on his fingers. “Why did you move away like that!” 

“We… W- We…” Kihyun turns red and gestures between the two and then at his lips. Looking away like a two-year-old after he steals something.

Minhyuk groans and pulls him to his feet, replacing the comforter around his shoulders, before putting his own layers on. “Idiot!” He exclaims, dragging the boy out of the clearing speedily, “it doesn't matter between men, so relax!”

**Seoul, 2017**

As the morning sun filters through the living room window, Jooheon stretches his locked limps and eyes the diary on the table. Open on the last page he’d read the night before. He folds the page where the boy’s entry finishes and closes the boy and begins tending to his daily routine.

The boy’s words still inscribed in his mind as they are in the diary.

**He says it doesn't matter. That, between men, it's no big deal.**

**If only he’d known.**

**If only he knew that my first kiss with him, matters more than any number of kisses I might receive in the future.**

**He thinks it's merely platonic. That it's an accident. And sure, it is. I didn't mean to fall on him. Didn't mean to kiss him. But that doesn't make the kiss is any less important than it would've been had we been aware.**

**It's funny, really.**

**How my first kiss is worthless to the one I love.**

* * *

**Entry Forty Nine**

**Seoul, 2017**  
Changkyun is dancing and the boy looks ethereal as his body moves along the beat of the song, popping along the words of the rapper. Jooheon is once again struck by the grace the boy carries despite his lanky body. 

He watches the boy's hand that rest suggestively at the front of his jeans every time he is about to thrust to a certain beat. Knows when Changkyun is going lick his lips and flip his hair despite this being the first time he's seeing this choreography. Jooheon notices every little detail about the boy. His eyes that blink every time the rapper breaths in. His t-shirt when it clings to his body at places that make Jooheon gulp.

It's weird. Something is odd and Jooheon just can't seem to put his finger on it.

Ever since the day he'd dumped Hana something weird has been happening. For starters, he's become more observant when it comes to Changkyun. He can spot the boy in a crowd of students and it's not because the boy is abnormally tall. He notices little things at first, like the way Changkyun leans on his right leg while waiting for ice cream. Or how he always eats the fish cookies by their tail first. Or the fact that Changkyun mouths the lyrics to the songs he's listening to while he's doing his homework. 

But then, he starts to notice impossibly invisible things too. How he always skips a half step higher when there's a crack in the tiles. His three different sneezes and the meaning of each. Jooheon doesn't even have to look at him to know when he's gonna be rolling his eyes or muttering a curse word. Heck! He even knows what curse word Changkyun will use in the given situation. 

And frankly speaking, Jooheon doesn't know what to make of it all.

It's a brand-new feeling. Noticing someone like this. Observing them to the point of being a stalker. Even now he knows that Changkyun is about to drop down on his side any moment now and wail for an ice cream cone.

And sure enough, as soon as the song fades into silence, Changkyun crashes into the dance floor with a thud and pouts towards Jooheon. “I need ice cream, Joohoney!”

Jooheon smiles and nods his head, ushering the boy to clean up and get ready. Because of course he would agree. His insides are on fire right now after watching Changkyun dance like the devil he is. Ice cream is a must right now.

**Suwon, 2017**  
It's the coldest day recorded in the history of Suwon in the past 32 years. But Kihyun feels nothing but warmth in his body when he listens to Minhyuk sing. 

They are at a karaoke bar with some of their friends and Minhyuk has only just started singing. It's an old folk song, _Mermaid’s Tale _by Holin. Kihyun isn't really a big fan of the woman, mainly because she lived almost 20 years ago, and her music is too old school for him. But the way Minhyuk sings, his eyes closed and a melancholic smile resting on his lips, makes Kihyun want to record the sound on a Möbius strip.

Once again, Kihyun is struck by all those feelings he never knew he possessed. All those things Minhyuk makes him feel. The pure ones, the sinful ones. The desperation and the pride. 

He looks away from the singing boy, out through the window in the room. At the streets where cold gusts are blowing from the south. Children holding mufflers around their necks. Old ladies carrying warm teacups in their hands. Couples holding hands under sweaterpaws. 

His heart aches at the sight so he looks away only to find that Minhyuk is looking at him, straight in the eyes. A cheeky smile hanging on his lips.

Kihyun replied with a smile of his own. Unaware of the set of eyes staring at him with pain behind the lids.

**Seoul, 2017**  
It's freezing and Jooheon and Changkyun are the only two buying ice cream cones from a street vendor. Usually Jooheon doesn't mind what others think about him though, he's actually rather oblivious to what is happening around him actually, so he tunes out the whispers and fingers pointed at them to bite into his cone. Watching Changkyun lick at the ice treat instead.

Changkyun groans once they start walking again and scowls at the elder, “you don't bite an ice cream, Joohoney!” He wails for everyone to hear.

But Jooheon doesn't mind as he instead raises his eyes and shoves the boy lightly on the shoulders, “Ya!” He then makes a huge show of ‘biting the ice cream’, a smug smile on his lips when Changkyun scowls at his antics and continues, “it's tastier that way! Who licks ice creams, anyway!?”

Changkyun scoffs offended and with his hands on his hips like an angry girlfriend, makes a threatening fist at his friend as he replies, “almost everyone licks an ice cream. It's cream! For Heaven's sake.” He scoffs once again and flips his hair sassily warning him, “Don't disrespect the iciness of Iced! Creams!” Then, the boy makes a more exaggerated and dramatic show of slowly licking the ice cream just to piss Jooheon off. 

Except, Jooheon finds himself simply staring at the boy. The pink lips that pout at him as this tongue continues to lick at the strawberry ice cream. His pink dusted cheeks that are slightly dry from the cold. Changkyun’s eyes when they sparkle as he continues licking the ice cream. 

Something evil settles into Jooheon’s gut. He's suddenly aware. Of every goose bump that exists on his body. Every taste bud on his tongue. He imitates the boy unconsciously and figures the reason out too late.

At first, he thinks maybe it's because of the way Changkyun eats the treat that’s making it look tastier than his own chocolate cone. But just as soon as they thought greets him, it is refuted.

_That's not it. _He tells himself. 

Bringing up his thumb to wipe off the ice cream that Changkyun smears on the corner of his lips, Jooheon is just about to speak when Changkyun pushes his tongue out to lick it off instead. But, like every other cliché romcom, he ends up licking Jooheon’s finger instead.

Of course, to Changkyun it's no big deal. He simply sticks his tongue out at the guy singing, “me~ rong!” and walks away. Leaving behind Jooheon with a revelation. 

The elder stares at the back of the boy, walking away and mutters to himself with a chuckle, a small smile playing on his lips, shaking his head as he follows, “can't believe I want to taste his tongue more than the ice cream.”

**Suwon, 2017**  
Kihyun is staring longingly at the only open ice cream parlour when his friend, Hyungwon, starts speaking to nobody in particular, “they say it's gonna snow today.” The boy has his hands stretched out in front of his, wiggling them as he wills the sky to break into snowfall. 

Minhyuk scoffs from the corner and shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and he sniffles against the cold. “Says who? You never know with Suwon.” A strong wind passes by and he shivers, pulling his scarf closer to his ears as he exclaims, “dammit it's cold, though.”

Hoseok, Kihyun's cousin, then smacks the boy on the back of his head and pulls his ears, asking him “Don't you read the newspaper in the morning. It was all over the weather report.”

Minhyuk simply rolls his eyes and shoves the elder off, groaning as he squeezes between Hyungwon and Kihyun. “I told you not to walk beside me!” Grabbing Kihyun boy his shoulders he turns to the boy, whose eyes are still locked on the ice cream parlour but jerk back at him when he smells the familiar red bean fragrance wafting from his best friend. “I hate him! Why do you always have him tag along?” He wails in mock disgust.

Kihyun rolls his eyes and flips his forehead exclaiming “Hyungwon invited him, not me!” The weight of Minhyuk's arm on his shoulder heavy. “Besides, we all you know love having him around! He's like your favourite target to tease!”

Minhyuk pouts and crosses his arms across his chest - Kihyun's shoulders feel ominously, light. “doesn't mean I like it when he manhandles me!”

“I don't manhandle you” Hoseok drones from the side, sounding increasingly bored by their little banter. “I simply reward your stupidity with a smack on the head sometimes.”

Making a fist behind his back, Minhyuk punches their air between him and Hoseok, cursing under his breath. Hyungwon simply chuckles, biting his lips at Minhyuk's exaggerate actions and Kihyun turns away from the scene to see the old ice cream parlour he's been staring at for the past ten minutes that they've been standing at the bus stop.

An arm comes to rest on his shoulder, it's Minhyuk, of course, and Kihyun leans into the warm almost embrace looking up at the slightly taller boy. A small smile twinkling in the boy's eyes. “You wanna grab some ice cream?”

“Can't hide anything from you, huh?” Kihyun chuckles turning back to the parlour. He side-eyes Hyungwon chatting with Hoseok something and then turns to Minhyuk, biting his lips. “Hyungwon won't come though.”

“Screw him!” Minhyuk sings and once again grabs him by the shoulders, pulling him towards the ice cream parlour. “We're headed to the ice cream store across!” Minhyuk yells as they cross the road. “Yell when the bus arrives!”

**Seoul, 2017**  
A small crowd of tourists and civilians alike seems to have gathered near the fountain where a man wearing khaki clothes sits on the ground. He has a jute mat laid out in front of him with several cards and a parrot sitting on it. Jooheon and Changkyun, having finished their ice creams, walk towards the man who, who seems to be completely immune to the icy winds of December. They managed to push their ways through they're crowd to the very corner of the loose circle that surrounds the man.

“What's all this about?” Jooheon muses to no one in particular. 

“He's a great Shaman!” an old, greying woman, whispers to him cryptically, never moving her eyes from the man who seems to be muttering something under his breath. 

Changkyun is the one who responds to her with a “Shaman? Like, predicting the future kind of deal?” 

“Not just the future,” The man standing beside the woman provides, leaning closer to Changkyun as he explains, “he can see your past, your future and everything in between.”

The younger one of the two friends hum in wonder and turns to his friend with sparkling eyes. “Let's get ours checked too!”

Jooheon rolls his eyes and grabs Changkyun’s hand, pulling him away from the crowd. “That's all just bullshit, Changkyunie.” He continues to drag the boy away, who keeps looking back.

“But I wanna see my future!” Changkyun pouts giving up on trying to get Jooheon to listen. He jerks his hand out of the boy's and closes his arms across his chest dragging his feet as he follows.

Jooheon turns to him around at that and smirks, pulling his arms away and, once again grabbing his hands. “I can tell you your future.” He starts pulling the boy near an accessories store and places a beanie on his head as he continues, “a few years from now, you'll release a mixtape under some dumb stage name and becoming a dancing prodigy. You'll own a pet dog, who you'll love too much.” He pays for the hat and smiles at his friend when he sees him click a selca with it. “And we'll probably be living together in Gangnam after you move out of your parents place because you want to save money.”

“That doesn't sound too bad, actually.” Changkyun grins cheekily at him. 

Jooheon smiles back at the boy, reaching for his hand and, once again, pulling him away. 

**Suwon, 1966**  
They are walking back from the bus stop. After a good round of chiding from Hyungwon both Minhyuk and Kihyun were able to successfully ignore him and eat their ice cream. They are now headed home when Hyungwon once again pushes his hand out in front of him and looks up at still bright sky. 

“You know,” he begins grabbing their attention. Hoseok walking behind the three with eyes closed and earphones in. He’s most probably not listening but that doesn’t stop Hyungwon from speaking. “They say that when two people walk together under the first snow, they fall in love.” 

Kihyun snorts as he shoves his hands inside his jacket pockets, grinning at the boy as he muses, “exactly who are these people who keep feeding such lies to you? And where can I find them?”

Hyungwon smacks the boy’s head from behind and does the same to Minhyuk when he laughs, continuing, “my sister told me.”

“You sound like a five year old,” Minhyuk rolls his eyes and turns to the boy with mock anger, “and will you two stop hitting me already?” He points at Hyungwon and Hoseok, muttering under his breath, “I’ll end up getting permanent brain damage this way.”

Of course, Hyungwon ignores him, blowing warm breaths over his nails. “If that was true, though…” He wonders for just his three friends to hear. “If you knew that the first snow was about to fall, what would you do?”

“What do you mean?” Kihyun asks, his voice hollow for some reason.

Hyungwon shrugs and looks up at the still clear sky as he explains, “if I knew it was real, I’d probably run to my crush and demand that we walk under the falling snow.”

“It would be a romantic memory,” Minhyuk smirks. “I give you that.” He chuckles under his breath and hums pleasantly, tilting his head to the side as he says, “if someone asked me out under the first snow, I’d probably say yes.”

Kihyun stares at the boy after he says that, unable to stop himself for asking. “What if it was someone you could never have feelings for, though?” He gulps when his friend looks at him with curiosity in his eyes.

Hyungwon is the one who answers then, eyes looking into Kihyun with meaning hiding behind them. “Question lies in whether that someone would have it in them to confess or not. Whether or not their confession is rejected comes later.”

Minhyuk hums a tune under his breath as he ponders over the question, oblivious to the tears that have gathered under Kihyun’s eyes or the frown on Hyungwon’s lips.

**Seoul, 2017**

Jooheon is already under his covers when he realizes that he hasn’t opened Kihyun’s Diary in more than a week. He pulls out the leather clad book from his bedside table drawers and turns to the bookmarked page he’d last left it upon.

He’s nearing its end now. 

**October 4th, 1966**

**“I’d still accept their feelings. Regardless of whether I could love them or not, I’d accept their feelings. It wouldn’t change much. But I’m sure I’d come to respect them more than I did before.**

**Those who tell you that self-respect comes before anything and everything; who tell you to walk away from a love that hurts you, have never truly loved.**

**Only those who have truly loved, know that shame has no place in the heart that loves.”**

**That’s what Minhyuk said today. **

**I kept thinking over and over again: _What does he mean by this? What do I make of this?_ But I couldn’t come to a conclusion.**

**It didn’t snow today. Hyungwon was wrong.**

**Any other day I would’ve gloated to him about his false prediction. But now…**

**I don’t think I can call him out on his predictions.**

**He’s not always wrong, after all. **

**Sometimes he's right.**

**Sometimes he knows. **

**He knows everything, and I can no longer look into his eyes.**

***

A phone call wakes him up from his sweet slumber and usually Jooheon wouldn’t even blink an eye open, but the device vibrates right underneath his pillow. Groaning, he blindly answers the call and is bombarded with the booming voice of Changkyun.

_“Joohoney!” _The boy screams into the mike and Jooheon is suddenly awake. He shoots up in his bed and ruffles his hair as he winces some muffled complaints that Changkyun ignores, continuing to scream in his ears. “Joohoney_! It’s snowing!”_

Jooheon raises an eyebrow and pulls away the curtains on his window to stare at the spectacular sight outside. Snow, like icing sugar, covers the roads like a white fuzzy blanket. He smiles involuntarily and mutters to Changkyun on the other line, _“it’s beautiful.”_

_“Hurry up and make a wish!” _Comes the voice from over the phone. Excited and so childlike. _“I heard if you make a wish after seeing the first snow of the season, it gets fulfilled!”_

_“Who tells you these things?” _Jooheon rolls his eyes, getting out of bed. He’s too awake to sleep now. He walks into the kitchen, cellphone tucked between his ear and shoulder as he starts making a cup of hot cocoa. 

_“My grandpa told me!” _Changkyun whines. _“It might not be real, but it’s worth a try, right?”_

Jooheon, once again, rolls his eyes, scoffs and sardonically replies, _“I can’t believe you woke me up at four in the morning for this.”_

_“Fuck you too!” _Changkyun laughs into the receiver. _“Anyway. I need to get back to sleep now.” _He yawns and licks his lips as he recalls to Jooheon, _“I’d woken up to pee and happened to see it snowing. It looked so pretty, so thought I’d let you know.”_

That makes Jooheon smile. The fact that Changkyun thought of him after seeing the beautiful work of nature. That the first name that popped into the boy’s brain at the snow was his. A certain boy’s words ring in his mind then. Loud and alluring.

**They say that when two people walk together under the first snow, they fall in love.**

With a cheeky smile lingering on his lips, he reaches for his jacket and a pair of gloves as he makes his way to the door. _“Hey, Changkyunie.” _He says over the phone, already jogging down the stairs of his apartment complex. When the boy hums sleepily, he continues _“Put a jacket on. Let’s go for a walk.”_

As if just being woken up again, Changkyun howls into the cellphone, _“but it’s snowing!”_

Jooheon snickers as he gets into his car, revving the engine. _“That’s kinda the point, Changkyunie.”_

**Suwon, 1966**  
“I met her four days ago” Minhyuk tells him and Kihyun gulps down a cry of despair as he smiles for his friend’s sake.

Four days after the first snow of the season, Minhyuk tells him he’s fallen in love.

Kihyun had known about it four days ago. When he had raced to Minhyuk’s house when the snow had started to fall. He’d seen it. Minhyuk walking under the ice falling from the sky with a girl from his vocal class. Sharing the green and black striped umbrella that Kihyun had lent him.

He’d known it for four days, that his first snow was stolen. But hearing it from Minhyuk makes it all real. His first love, much like that snowy day, was stolen.

But he smiles, because Minhyuk expects him to. Because what else can he do?

* * *

**Entry Seventy Four**

**Suwon, 1966**  
Kihyun eyes the blackboard in front of him with a bored expression, tapping his feet incessantly as he eyes the wall clock in the classroom. It's Chemistry class and Kihyun can't wait for it to end. It's one of the classes he doesn't share with Minhyuk and that's part of the reason why he gets bullied in it.

As another spit ball flies into the split if his neck, Kihyun turns to send a nasty glare at the person who'd done it. The boy, Ikjae, makes nothing of that glare and snickers at him, loading another ball into his straw to blow at Kihyun. The boy huffs an annoyed, restrained sigh. Closes his eye to count to ten and wills the classroom bell to ring.

Seventeen minutes later, exactly when Kihyun has finished counting a thousand and twenty seconds and more than twenty spit balls, the recess bell blares, and the boy hastens to gather his things. His steps, unsure where they want to lead him, are fervent as he cuts through the mass of students towards the east wing where Minhyuk’s class just ended.

There’s anticipation bubbling in the pit of his stomach as he gets closer to the Korean Literature classroom where his best friend always waits for him. Because it’s been almost two weeks since he’s last seen Minhyuk.

The hallway has cleared up significantly as he pushes past the few kids that are exiting their classrooms for the recess and he soon finds himself just outside the Korean Literature classroom. He’s about to turn the doorknob to enter the classroom but a look inside through the window outside shows him Minhyuk sitting in the last bench, pressed sinfully against Hana, his girlfriend.

The same weight of a burning metal rod being stabbed into his guts, roots him to the spot and Kihyun just keeps staring at the scene in front of him. Hands on the doorknob, hidden from sight. The hallway is completely empty now, and Kihyun manages to let out a choked sob that would’ve otherwise died in his throat.

He watches Minhyuk’s fingers riding up the girl’s skirt, caressing the milky white skin with urgency. Can hear the sighs, the whines that Minhyuk elicits as he ruts against her thighs. The way the boy groans and rolls his eyes in his skull at the apparent pleasure coursing through him. And he can’t take it. It’s been more than four months since Minhyuk has been dating her, but Kihyun can still not face them together.

So, he heaves a sigh and walks away. 

**Seoul, 2017**  
“Jooheon, it’s cold out” Changkyun whines under his breath as he wraps his plush blanket around his body. White mists of hot breath gathering in the air in front of them. “What are we doing out here anyway?” He stares around at the playground in his apartment complex. Shivering against the cold, lips chattering. 

Jooheon smirks and shrugs, pulling out a coffee from the paper bag he’d been holding and shoves an americano in his right hand, pulling the left one into his own. “Let’s take a walk.” He says, pulling the boy away from the main entrance.

Changkyun groans under his breath, trying to pull his hand out of the boy’s in a weak attempt. “It’s snowing right now, Joohoney.” The boy pouts, trying to loosen the grip on his frozen hand. “I’m not even wearing a hat or a beanie or a jacket or anything! I heard if you get snow on your scalp, you go bald!”

The elder boy raises his eyes at him and pulls off his own beanie. With a gummy smile etched into his gums he stands on the tip of his toes and barely manages to put the hat on the younger boy’s head with a huff. “You’re full of crazy myths, Changkyunie.” He mutters under his breath. Hot air escaping his lips and hitting Changkyun’s.

“Wh- what about... what about you?” Changkyun asks in barely a whisper as he continues being pulled by the elder boy in the snow. 

“I’m okay with going bald, Changkyunie.” He smiles at the boy and ushers him to drink his coffee. When Changkyun brings the cup up to his lips though, he watches the elder frown at his hands and growl at him, “why aren’t you wearing gloves, you idiot!?”

To Changkyun’s credit he manages to look just as peeved as Jooheon and shoots right back the boy, “because you forced me to come out in the snow for a fucking walk!”

Jooheon groans and grabs his hair into a bunch in his hands before letting go and taking off his gloves. He takes the coffee cup out of Changkyun’s hands and shoves the gloves into them instead, demanding him to “hurry up and put these on!”

Changkyun scrunches his nose at the grey woollen gloves and points at Jooheon’s hands, “what about you then?”

“I don’t freeze up like a dead body unlike you do, Changkyun” Jooheon rolls his eyes tiredly.

“No!” Changkyun yells and folds his arms across his chest, pouting. “I’m not wearing those and letting your fingers freeze in the cold like this.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jooheon shoots back exasperated. “Cut my hands off?”

The younger boy sends him a withering look and bites his lips before he speaks, almost as if he’s frustrated with the situation and him. “I want you to go back to your home, let me go back to mine. And fucking sleep! Because it’s fucking snowing!” Changkyun turns around walking away, and yawns as he mumbles a “goodnight, Jooheon.”

As if a lightning bolt jolting him awake, Jooheon jerks when the boy turns as reaches to grab his hands before he leaves. When his hand wraps around Changkyun’s wrist the taller boy turns to the him with raised eyes and frowns at him in question. He waits several beats for something to come to him. An excuse to get him to stay. Looking back at the gloves in his hands he looks at Changkyun and smiles, pulling him back. “We can share.”

“Are you seriously going to chop off your hand and mine for the sake of walk in the snow?” Changkyun dryly asks, stifling a yawn.

“Just put your other hand in my jacket pocket, idiot.” Jooheon responds, hitting him lightly on the side of his head.

Once again Changkyun groans and whines at the elder, having misheard him, “I didn’t bring a jacket, Joohoney!”

Another smack on the back of his head, Jooheon places the coffee cup on a nearby bench then reaches out to take Changkyun’s hand in his own - nails blue already - and puts the gloves on the boy’s fingers. “Why don’t you hear me clearly before you go blabbering excuses, brat?” He then grabs the coffee, shoving it in Changkyun’s gloved hand and pushing his right, ungloved hand into the pockets of his jacket. “I said put your hand in _my _pocket,” he mutters unnecessarily. 

As he puts his right-hand glove on his hand, Jooheon is fully aware of the blush that rises on Changkyun’s cheeks at their proximity to each other. To keep his hand in his pocket, Changkyun has to lean closer than usual to him, pressing his side into Jooheon’s. Mentally Jooheon congratulates himself for Changkyun’s stubbornness of roaming around without a jacket in the winter.

His glove donned, Jooheon turns to the boy and pushes his own hand in the left pocket of his jacket, grabbing Changkyun’s without so much as a flinch. “Now come on.” He mumbles, gripping on tighter to those frozen digits that have now turned clammy due to nerves. “Let me tell you a myth about first snow.”

**Suwon, 1966**  
Kihyun is sitting behind the last bookshelf in the public library, his science homework pulled out in front of him. It’s a hidden corner in the building that he had discovered with Minhyuk during their last year of middle school. It’s a haven that Minhyuk has occupied many a night as he tries to run away from home and a conservatively abusive father or Kihyun uses when he wants to hide from bullies. Kihyun had thought it to be a secret hideout that only he and his best friend would ever know about and had found solace in the knowledge that it was the one unclaimed piece of the world that Kihyun could claim his own. Unknown to and untainted by others.

He’s in the middle of turning to the next of the textbook though when he hears the tinkling laughter of a girl, followed by the bellowing guffaws he’s known to call home.

He stops himself from turning the page, going completely still as he hears Minhyuk whispering something to Hana, pulling her closer and closer to ‘Their’ spot of the library. Biting his lips to keep in the silent cry, Kihyun stealthily moves his things and himself to the side of the shelf. It’s a blind spot from where he can watch the couple through the gap between the health magazines but they can’t see him.

“Min-baby” he hears Hana whines as his friend pushes her in the very spot had previously been sitting in. Minhyuk settles down beside her, pulling her in a hungry, rough kiss. “What are we doing here, baby?” she gasps as Minhyuk’s tongue leaves wet trails in her collarbones.

Minhyuk looks up from the hickeys he’s left on the side of her neck and smirks as he presses another desperate kiss into her awaiting lips, “we’re making out, darling.”

A rather shameless laugh issues from her red-tainted lips, and Hana grabs onto the collars of his shirt, pulling him impossibly close as she joins her lips with his own.

Kihyun turns away then, lips stuttering despite the warm air blowing down on him from the air vent. He bites his lips to stop his hiccups from ringing in the quiet library and forces his eyes shut, trying to ignore the gasps and whines the two are educing. Presses his palms against his ears to draw out the lustful sounds the couple makes. A cry of pain or something akin to hurt gets lodged in his throat when he hears a few buttons popping. He shoves his fist in his mouth to keep himself from crying out loud.

Because he can’t move now, lest giving away his attendance. He can’t possibly explain why he was hiding behind the shelf despite knowing Minhyuk and Hana were there, so he stays put. He’s mentally preparing himself for the ominous sound of a zipper being undone but that doesn’t come. Instead, he hears the two breaking apart, breathing heavily.

“I love you, Hana” he hears Minhyuk whisper to her. The emotions thick in his voice. Words, never wavering. Kihyun knows him too well to know that Minhyuk means it.

“I love you too, baby” comes her reply. Lacking all the emotions Kihyun wishes he could convey. He hears her caress Minhyuk’s cheeks, arms still wrapped around his neck as she continues, “why’d you stop, though?” With a hint of sluttiness in her tone, she drops her voice to a bass and whispers lustfully in his ears, “I’m all riled up now.”

Kihyun doesn’t turn back to see the couple but he can hear Minhyuk chuckle as he pulls out of the embrace, bringing her hands into his lap. “I’d love to, sweetie. But I have to go meet Kihyun in a few minutes. Haven’t seen him in a while.” A smile, albeit bitter, traces on his lips when Minhyuk says that. Kihyun bites his lips when Minhyuk continues to explain to Hana. “He’s been impossible to get a hold of ever since we started dating.” The younger boy knows this to be true and quietly berates himself for making it so obvious. “I think he wanted to give us some alone time. But I miss him, so I wanna go meet up.”

It warms his heart. That Minhyuk cares so much. That he misses him just as much as Kihyun does. 

“Do you have to?” Hana wails and Kihyun’s smile turns into a frown again at her next words. “I don’t really like him, baby.”

A silence falls between the two that Kihyun wishes he had the courage to fill. He doesn’t turn around to look at the scene behind him, and that only serves it make it all the more impossible to bear the silence. After an eternity of patience passes, Minhyuk speaks in a tight whisper. “He’s my best friend, Hana.”

“I know he is” comes Hana’s reply. “But…” she stops mid-sentence and heaves a sigh before continuing. “But I don’t like him, Baby.”

“Why?” Minhyuk’s voice sounds defeated and hollow. Like it physically hurts him to ask her that. Like he can’t believe it. “He’s such a good guy. He’s my best friend!”

“You know what?” Hana responds back almost eerily cheery again. “Forget I ever said that. Let’s go, I need to finish that science homework.”

She makes to get up but Kihyun hears Minhyuk grab her before she can move, demanding her to, “tell me why you don’t like him? I need to know.”

“Minhyuk it’s-”

“I need to know, Hana.” Minhyuk cuts her off mid-sentence. Voice taut with anger. Kihyun can almost see his honey eyes glaring at her in question.

She huffs, maybe rolls her eyes and crosses his arms across her chest as she leans back on the shelf as she states, “because he’s gay.”

A deafening roar of something utterly horrifying surrounds him when he hears those words tumble out of her lips and Kihyun lets out a whimper, nearly blowing his cover. Just like when the gongs signalling the arrival of the hangman being sounded, the air stills and Kihyun feels his airways restricted. His hand reaches up to to his throat and claws at the skin to get some air into his lungs.

It’s all too much too soon. That word. Someone used that word to describe him. Someone used that word to describe him to Minhyuk.

He’s silently crying by the time Minhyuk starts speaking, the anger in his voice is now as apparent as the morning sun. “What the fuck are you saying!?” Minhyuk howls at the girl, who for her credit, merely scoffs at his response.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I didn’t tell you!”

“Take that back” Minhyuk mutters threateningly to her. “I said take that fucking back! How dare you call him that!?” His voice booms through the empty hallway. Vibrating the bookshelves as he bangs his fist on the ground.

“I’m not taking anything back.” Hana stubbornly replies. Rolling her eyes as she continues, “he’s a disgusting fag and everyone at school knows it!” She smirks at him, tilting her head to the side, “why do you think he gets bullied?”

“What are you talking about?” Minhyuk squints at her. Suddenly all that love in his eyes has turned black with rage. Replace with anger and hatred. “What do you mean he gets bullied?”

“Aww. You didn’t know?” Hana mocks him smirking at his expense. “Figures. He couldn’t possibly let you find out that he’s being bullied by the entire school for being a penis loving manwhore.”

A bang resounds the quiet corner, followed by an indignant cry as Minhyuk punches a few books out of the shelf, just beside Hana’s face. She stares at him horrified as if he’d just punched her instead of the books. “Don’t you dare fucking insult him.”

Kihyun hears her shuffle to her feet and sneer at him disdainfully as he flips her hair, “I will insult him as much as I want.” She declares, pushing Minhyuk when he gets up too. “He’s a dirty homo. A bloody cocksucker who lusts after men. How can you possibly like him?”

“He’s no such thing!” Minhyuk grits back, hands turning into fists. “You better stop bad mouthing him now if you know what’s good for you.”

“Or what?” She challenges him, glaring daggers into his eyes. “Are you gonna hit me for him?” When Minhyuk doesn’t reply, simply seething she smirks again “you didn’t know, did you? That he’s gay?”

“He’s not gay” Minhyuk bites out to her. His voice screaming of warning. “He’s the son of the only clergyman in town. I’ve known him for my all my life.” Kihyun waits for Minhyuk to continue, feeling both pride and despair at his friend’s words. Pride fills him to the core to see Minhyuk fighting for his honour. Despair makes him wonder how his friend would react to the truth if he ever knew.

“He’s gay, Minhyuk” Hana then states, placing a hand on his shoulder as if talking to a child. “Ikjae found him writing love letters to some boy during middle school. Everyone knows he stares at the boys in the locker room. He never even showed an interest in any girl. Ever.”

Minhyuk goes still at those words. As if only now realizing. Kihyun’s stomach feels like a black hole has taken residence in it and a silent prayer sits at the edge of his lips. _Please don’t let him find out._

A while passes before Minhyuk speaks again, completely breaking what little pieces of Kihyun’s heart he had spared. “He can’t be a disgusting faggot. He just can’t.”

**Seoul, 2017**  
“I found a diary in the public library three months ago,” Jooheon begins as they start their little tread in the park. He looks up at the taller boy and curses his lack of tact. He should’ve worn his insoles. “It wasn’t part of the library catalogue though.”

“Is that what this is about?” Changkyun wonders out loud, sipping at his americano. He’s already forgotten that just a few minutes ago he was craving sleep. “This impromptu walk?”

Jooheon shrugs as he continues guiding around the park, fingers playing inside his pocket with Changkyun’s. “It’s written by a boy in 1966. High schooler. A gay boy in 1966 in Suwon.”

“It’s a personal diary?” Changkyun inquires, invested in what Jooheon has to say now. When Jooheon nods Changkyun frowns and tilts his head to the side as he winces, “it’s not a memoir of his sexual adventures, is it? Urgh! I’m gonna fucking hate you for life if you got turned on after reading the sexual experiences of a high schooler in 1966 and came out here to walk it off with me.”

“You really need a filter in that mouth of yours, brat.” Jooheon mutters as he smiles. He lets silence rein between them for a while, watching the snow melt away under his shoes. “It’s about a boy called Kihyun who was in love with his best friend Minhyuk.”

“Does it have a sad ending?” Changkyun asks as he continues sipping at the now lukewarm coffee.

“I think it will.” Jooheon whispers as he starts rubbing Changkyun’s knuckles. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

“What makes you think it’ll be a sad ending if you haven’t read it yet?” the taller boy responds. He stares at the snow that falling down on them and mutters to the elder in a hopeful tone, “it might end on a happy note.”

“Minhyuk was not gay. He had a girlfriend.” Jooheon explains. “Kihyun was the only one who loved him. That's not to say that Minhyuk didn't love him back.” He looks at the boy and smiles, “Minhyuk loved him the most in the world. Just a different kind of love.”

“Minhyuk didn't know, did he?” Changkyun asks and Jooheon shakes his head in negative. He ponders over the meaning of this and responds a little late, “Kihyun must've hurt a lot.”

Once again Jooheon shrugs and hums before he replies, “You're a Buddhist, right?” He asks Changkyun and when the boy nods his head he continues, “there's a belief in Buddhism that if you die with an unfulfilled heart, you'll get reincarnated for a second chance at life.”

“Since when are you interested in Buddhist beliefs?” Changkyun asks him.

“Humor me.” Jooheon grins at him. Flicking his nose with his gloved hand. “Your father used to be an apprentice in the temple before he met your mom, right?”

Changkyun smiles pleasantly at the mention of his parents and nods as he replies, “yep. Dad was going to be a priest before he fell in love with Mom.” He thinks about what Jooheon has just told him and starts speaking after a while. “I guess that's one way of putting it though. Reincarnation is one of the major beliefs in Buddhism. People have different theories about it, but I guess you could say it's a way to fulfil missed opportunities and chances.”

“So, say Kihyun and Minhyuk don't end up together.” Jooheon continues the train of thought. “Say Kihyun's love remains unfulfilled. Say Minhyuk loses a friend and a potential lover because of the restrictions of the time they had lived in. Because of who or what they were.”

“Okay…” Changkyun edges Jooheon to continue.

Jooheon turns to face him then. The snow has turned his green beanie white and Changkyun’s lips have turned purple from the cold. His cheeks red from the cold breeze. Nose pink. “Do you think they could make it in their second try at life? Do you think… they could fall in love and fulfil it in their second chance?”

Changkyun looks back into Jooheon’s eyes. An unknown ocean of emotions staring back at him. A sea of knowledge that seems so close he could touch it, but he just can’t.

“They could. If Kihyun really loved Minhyuk. Really loved him.” Changkyun whispers as he moves a little closer to Jooheon. “If Kihyun really did love Minhyuk, then Minhyuk would surely love him back.”

Jooheon doesn't reply back immediately after that. He stops in the middle of the park, Changkyun following suit. The two boys stare at each other from behind hooded eyes. Jooheon’s hand still wrapped around Changkyun’s in his jacket pocket. The coffee cup, no longer in his hand, Changkyun’s left hand hangs limply by his side. Like a frozen moment from an old love story, the two boys stand staring into each other's eyes in the snow carpeted park.

And then Jooheon speaks, leaning up on the tip of his toes as he places his gloved hand on the side of Changkyun’s neck.

“They say if two people walk together under the first snow,” he hovers against Changkyun’s lips. Smiling when Changkyun leans into to bridge the gap, “they fall in love.”

**Suwon, 1966**  
Kihyun is sitting under the old mandarin tree behind his brother's factory. He's waiting for Minhyuk. 

After the fight with Hana, both Minhyuk and the girl, had steamed out of the library with urgent, annoyed footsteps and Kihyun hasn't seen his best friend since. When Hana had walked into the physics class this morning, Kihyun had peaked behind her to see Minhyuk walk in but the boy was nowhere in sight. Then when he reached home, his mother had informed him the Minhyuk had dropped by his house asking him to meet up near the old mandarin tree. 

That's what has him there. Minhyuk. 

He knows what this is about. Obviously, he does. Just yesterday his secret had been revealed to his best friend. A dirty, disgusting secret that he had sworn to take to the grave. He was ready for whatever Minhyuk would throw at him. Disgust. Disappointment. Hatred. Ignorance. Denial. Everything. 

But maybe he was kidding himself, because when Minhyuk arrives, his throat dries up and his eyes start to water. His palm shiver where they sit on his knees and Kihyun finds himself going numb.

Minhyuk slides down beside him in the grass, staring out at the tiny fencing that overlooks the town. The sun has already begun to set now. “Hi, Ki.”

Kihyun looks away from the sight in front of him to stare at Minhyuk. It feels like it's been ages since he's seen him. At least up close like this. “Hi, Min.” He whispers, a serene smile taking over his visage in contrast to the storm brewing in his guts.

“What's up?” Minhyuk asks him. It's a hollow, rather bland inquiry but Kihyun is thankful that they are exchanging pleasantries before they get to the bad stuff.

“Nothing much,” Kihyun replies with a shrug. “Just got back from school and mom told me to come down here.” He waits for Minhyuk to punctuate the silence but when his friend doesn't do so, he turns to face him and smiles, “why weren't you at school today.”

Almost in a whisper, Minhyuk mutters to him, “I broke up with Hana.” Kihyun remarks how his voice is lacking the remorse it should carry. How he sounds mostly unaffected by the breakup.

“What happened?” Kihyun whispers back. He knows but he needs to hear it from Minhyuk. He's had enough and just wants to get to the point now. Like standing on the edge of a cliff. He's scared but he just wants to end it.

Minhyuk stares at him and it hurts. The uncertainty in his friends’ eyes. The fear. The despair. “Are you…” He trails off biting his lips.

“Am I… What?” Kihyun echoes back. Fear gripping at him. Wrecking his insides. Making his nauseous. 

Minhyuk gulps, bites his lips as he stares into his eyes. “Are you being bullied?”

Kihyun lets out a laugh at his words. A scary, haunting laugh that echoes in the open field behind them. His head thrown back and cheeks hurting from laughing so loud. Minhyuk simply stares at him wide eyed. Waiting for him to say something.

When he sobers down Kihyun looks down at his hands in his lap then looks back up at Minhyuk. Eyes watering. Lips trembling. Shaking his head, he states bitterly, “That's not what you wanted to ask, is it?”

Dumbfounded by his words, Minhyuk gulps as he explains, “H- Hana…” He pauses and licks his lips before speaking again. “Hana said that… that you're gay.”

“And what did you say to her?” Is what Kihyun asks back.

“I told her there's no way you could be gay.” Minhyuk replies. So sure of himself.

Kihyun chuckles tiredly and scoffs at Minhyuk's words as he looks away. “Are you sure?” He bites his lips as another sob makes its way into his throat. “Are sure you didn't say that could never be a disgusting cocksucker, instead?”

“H- How did you…” Minhyuk trails off when a tear runs down Kihyun's cheeks. “Y- Kihyun…”

“Thank you, Min.” Kihyun smiles at him, once again turning back to face him. Minhyuk he hadn't done that because Kihyun is crying. He is crying and Minhyuk doesn't think he'll ever forget the sight of his best friend weeping like he is right now. “Thank you for fighting for me. For yelling at Hana. For getting angry on my behalf. For trusting me.” He shudders as a cold wind blows and Minhyuk wishes he could just grab the boy in a hug, but he can't move himself. Can't even speak if he wanted to. “Thank you for caring so much, Min.”

Minhyuk blinks away a tear and edges closer to Kihyun, holding his hand in his own as he smiles at the boy. “Of course, I care, Ki. You're my best friend.”

Kihyun’s lips tremble with the effort to keep his emotions in as he starts speaking again. An air of finality in his tone. “I'm sorry, Min. I'm s- so so-sorry.” He takes a deep breath to calm down his hiccups and continues as he stares at the grass they're sitting on. “Hana wasn't lying. The school bullies me because Ikjae found me writing a love letter to a boy during middle school.” He smiles before gulping loudly as he finishes, “That letter was for you, Min.”

Minhyuk looks like he's just seen a ghost. Eyes, owl-like. Mouth open in wander. Body stiff a corpse. “Y- Kihyun…” is all he manages to say before his throat goes dry.

The younger boy chuckles dryly at his reaction, like he's given up on life itself. “I really am a disgusting faggot, Min.” He then looks away again, biting his lips as he continues sobbing with his chin tucked in, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I like you, Min.”

He waits for Minhyuk to react. To yell in disgust. Anything. But Minhyuk doesn't. He just gets to his feet and walks away. His tread almost zombie like.

Leaving Kihyun weeping under the mandarin tree. 

**Seoul, 2017**  
“So…” Changkyun echoes once they enter his apartment. Jooheon trailing behind him with a silly smile on his lips. “Are we boyfriends now?”

The elder boy chuckles and nods his head lazily as he states, “We can be anything you want.”

Changkyun pretends to think it over but then let's out a cheeky, dimpled smile as he pulls his hand, “I wanna be lovers. Boyfriends.”

“Good,” Jooheon states, walking in behind him to the bedroom. “Now that that's settled. Let's please sleep. I'm spent.”

Changkyun sticks his tongue at the elder and pouts as he folds his arms across his chest, “I hate you sometimes.”

Already under the covers, Jooheon waves him over lazily and grins happily like a puppy at him. “It's fine as long as you love me more times.”

Changkyun rolls his eyes at the elder's words and tries to hide his smile as he settles in next to his boyfriend under the covers. They stay like that for some time. Basking in the warmth for the comforter and each other’s bodies pressed together. And simply listening to their hearts that seem to be in overdrive.

“Kihyun must've really loved Minhyuk a lot.” Jooheon says after a while, staring up at the ceiling with his hand playing with Changkyun’s. “He must've really loved him a lot. Enough to get a second chance at loving him.”

Changkyun then looks away from the lazy circles Jooheon seems to be drawing in the back of his hands to look at the boy. Smiling as he moves to press his face into the crook of the elder's neck. Letting him hold him in his embrace. “Well Minhyuk remembered to keep his promise.”

Jooheon looks down at him and smiles. Pulling him by the chin into a deep, desperate kiss. One that was overdue a long, long time now.

**Suwon, 1996**  
It's been a week since they've talked. The last time was under the mandarin tree. _Suneung_ exams have ended and summer break has started but unlike all the previous summers they've spent together, Minhyuk and Kihyun are not together this break.

It's not like they haven't run across each other in hallways or on bus stops. But every time Minhyuk tries to approach him, Kihyun walks away. He's avoided him well enough for the past week but Minhyuk is nothing if not adamant. 

That is what has him cycling down the town to Kihyun's home. He doesn't care that Kihyun's father hates him and that he'll probably scowl and curse at him, because he needs to talk to Kihyun. Something in the pit of his stomach is begging him to see his friend. 

Something ominous.

Soon as he reaches the bungalow that he had sneaked into more times than he can count, Minhyuk races up the front porch and keep ringing the bell at the door like a madman. Kihyun's brother opens the door for him and he sighs in relief because his brother actually likes him.

“Hyunwoo! W-where's Kihyun!?” He looks past him into the house but finds it empty. “I need to talk to him.”

Hyunwoo looks at him confused and ruffles his hair explaining to him. “He already left for the train, Minhyukie.”

“The train?” Minhyuk frowns “What do y-” He's cut short by the ringing of the telephone inside the house.

“Hang on a second, Minhyuk.” Hyunwoo says and turns to enter the house to get the phone. Talking over his back, “you can come in.”

Minhyuk watches Kihyun's brother answer the phone and groan at the person on the other line before hanging up. He then turns to Minhyuk and with an ugly frown marring his lips tells him “Ki forgot some stupid diary of his in his room. He wants me to bring it to the station.” He starts walking towards Kihyun's bedroom as he exclaims, “sorry, Minhyuk. Can't talk now!”

“Wait!” Minhyuk runs up to the elder and turns him around as he repeats his previous incomplete query at him, “what is Ki doing at the train station?”

“You're saying as if you don't know.”

“I really don't know!” Minhyuk insists, anxiety building up under his skin as more time passes by.

Hyunwoo frown at that and wonders mostly to himself, “That's odd. He tells you everything.”

“That's why I'm asking you what's going on? Why didn't he tell me? Is he going somewhere?” There's an unnatural urgency in his voice. The kind that a doctor carries as a patient is being taken to the ICU. 

“Kihyun's moving to Seoul, Minhyuk.” The elder man tells him. “His train leaves in less than an hour.”

A haunting silence follow after that lasts a measly second but shakes him to the core. “What!? He screams at the man. Forgetting all sanity in the face of an emergency. “Wh-why!?”

The man simply shrugs as he wanders out if Kihyun's bedroom, carrying a leather clad black diary. “Something about joining the monastery.”

Minhyuk stares at the book in the man's hand, sweat forming on his forehead. He then grabs that diary out of his hand and races out the door, yelling behind his back as he goes. “I'll take it to him!”

**Seoul, 2017**  
Jooheon stares at the final diary entry page with mixed emotions clouding his mind. Excitement, sorrow, anticipation, are only a few. He runs his fingers across the inked words and begins reading Kihyun final entry in the diary.

**March 23rd, 1966**

**I finally told him. He finally knows. **

**All the what ifs I had been fighting with. Every scenario I had played out in my mind. Every word, every action. **

**Everytime single single I'd spent imagining this moment, was a waste.**

**A complete utter waste of time.**

**He didn't curse me out but he didn't kiss me either.**

**He didn't call me dirty but it's not like he spared my feeling by saying he accepted my feelings either.**

**All the good scenarios I'd been hoping for. All the bad scenarios I had dreaded. None of them came to life.**

**He just walked away. Simply walked away.**

**I don't know how to perceive this.**

**I hadn't prepared myself for this.**

**Hatred. Acceptance. Disgust. Reciprocation. Consolation. Judgment.**

**I'd imagined everything except him walking away. **

**But he did walk away. He walked away and I can't help but think that that's the answer. **

**It's his way of showing me that he cares enough to not question my choices but not enough to stay by my side.**

**It's his way of respecting my opinion but not sticking by my words.**

**He's letting go. He's walking away.**

**And as I saw him walk away, I decided I needed to too.**

*** 

**March 24th, 19660**

**Ignoring him is the hardest thing I've ever done. He tried to talk to me today but I just couldn't bring myself to face him.**

**I'm such a coward but it's just the way I am. **

**Can't change that I'm scared. Can't change that I'm gay. A disgusting faggot. **

***

**March 25th, 1966.**

**Father agreed to send me to Seoul. **

**I want to tell Minhyuk that I'm leaving. Want him to send me off.**

**It's the least he could do, right?**

**But I don't want to see him. I feel like I might not be able to leave.**

*** 

**March 29th, 1966**

**I'll leave tomorrow. **

**Every inch of my body aches to call Minhyuk. To tell him I'm going away. To beg him to stop me. To plead him to see me one last time.**

**I'll leave tomorrow and the thought scares me.**

**Because, chances are, I'll never be able to see Minhyuk again.**

**And our last meeting would've been under the old mandarin tree.**

**I want to call him. But I'm more scared than I was under that mandarin tree.**

**What if he refuses to come?**

**I want to see him.**

Jooheon closes the diary as the microwave beeps, putting the diary on the table to bring out his dinner. 

**Suwon, 1966**  
Minhyuk races over to the platform like a mad man. Staring into every cart for the face of his best friend. He eyes the clock on the platform timer and pulls at his hair wildly when it strikes twelve. 

Just then, he makes out a mop of dirty brown hair in the third buggy and starts sprinting toward it. Calling out Kihyun's name as the train starts moving. The boy in the window jerks at the voice and sits frozen for and second or two before looking out the barred window.

Minhyuk is running beside the train, smiling with tears locked in his eyes when Kihyun finally sees him. 

As the train gains momentum, Kihyun watches, with tears in his eyes, the dark-haired boy racing towards the buggy. His hand itches to pull at the chain that will effectively stop the car, but he stops himself. He doesn't think he'll be able to leave if he stops now.

Minhyuk soon catches up to the moving cart though. Jogging beside the buggy in which Kihyun is seated, he grabs on to the metal bars crying to the boy, lips wobbling, “you can't go without saying goodbye, brat!”

A sad smile flowers on Kihyun's lips and he pushes his hands through the bars to hold on to Minhyuk's. They're cold. “Let go of the bars, idiot!” He mutters, grabbing onto his muffler and pulling it off before sliding it through the bars around Minhyuk's neck. “You shouldn't be running beside the train.”

The other boy doesn't reply. He simply keeps running beside the train, accelerating rapidly as the train speeds up. For several stretched moments, neither speaks. Their eyes wet with emotions. Lips bitten between unsaid confessions. “I'm never gonna see you again, am I?” Minhyuk asks gulping when Kihyun looks away at that.

Soon the train is running too fast and Minhyuk can't hold onto those warm hands he'd called home anymore. He lets go of the railing, the cold hitting him like lightning. Continuing to run beside the vehicle, nonetheless. “Stop running you fool!” Kihyun warns him, waving his arms through the bars. “Step back a little!”

But Minhyuk doesn't stop. He's searching for something to say. Anything to etch this moment to memory. To emboss Kihyun's face in his mind for eternity. As the train speeds up and Kihyun starts going away from his grasp, Minhyuk quickens his speed and gasps as he promises the boy.

“In another lifetime, when we meet again; I promise I'll love you first, Ki. I promise.”

By now Kihyun is crying. And so is Minhyuk. As the train goes out of reach Kihyun mutters just loud enough for him to hear, “I love you, Min.”

Minhyuk thinks he's missed his chance, and watching the train turn the corner, Kihyun disappearing in the cloud of steam, he falls to his knees, clutching his chest. Whimpering to the now empty spot where Kihyun been. 

“I love you, Ki.”

**Seoul, 2017**  
As Jooheon turns the last page in the diary, he smiles and promises himself to show Changkyun the polaroid photograph that stares back at him. It's a photograph he's seen before. A duplicate of it at least. 

Of two boys. Holding the extra-large ramen bowls over their heads, grinning like fools. There is curry all over their white shirts and face and they look utterly drunk.

The bottom of the polaroid inked with the date and their names.

**Lee Minhyuk Yoo Kihyun   
Suwon 1966**

* * *

Twitter: [@CMiMiU](https://twitter.com/cmimiu) | Tumblr: [CMiMiU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474071/cmimiu.tumblr.com/)| Ko-Fi: [Buy Me A Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/cmimiu)


	2. The Letters

I have decided to write a spin-off for this story, mainly because I feel like I want to show Minhyuk's side of the story too. It's called The Letters and it's a continuation of what happens after Kihyun leaves Suwon through letters Minhyuk writes to Kihyun after he leaves for Seoul.

That being said, please check it out by following this link: [The Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152495/chapters/47742970)


	3. Webtoon Collaboration

Looking for Artists wanting to Collaborate on “ ” for a Webtoon!

Now that one of my short stories has turned into a Webtoon,  [ The Soul Fisher ](https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-soul-fisher-h/list?title_no=427064) , I have this urge to animate some of my best stories! 

If anyone wants to collaborate, please DM me at mayumaya.96@gmail.com or at  [ @cmimiu ](https://www.instagram.com/cmimiu/?hl=en) on Instagram. 

PS: please send in some concept art for the story you would like to collaborate on!

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> PS: If you have read the other versions of this story, that's great! Please don't come at me for posting several different versions because my main goal is to reach as many readers as I can and also because I'm a hopeless stan~~~


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